Mass Effect 3

I'm excited about the expansion. I'm going to try to go slowly through the experience - I finished Leviathan all in one sitting and while it was fun, it was over too quickly.

I may also try to finish off the game again after completing Omega - after doing the Leviathan and Omega expansions I am hopeful I'll be able to make it to level 60 and get that achievement. Although I cringe thinking about trying to survive that last battle again.

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I really struggled with it the first time around because I kept trying to defeat every enemy (that's what two games worth of behavioural conditioning does to you!) I must have died a dozen times, but it actually became pretty simple once I focused on just staying alive. Short version: kite like a crazy person!

Leviathan should have been the plot to the entire third game. Not that I have an issue with the plot of the third game really, just that Leviathan was that good. I'm really looking forward to Omega but can't get it until next monday, unfortunately.

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Actually, I think it would have been better if it was part of Mass Effect 2. I mean the "great mystery" of the Collectors was that they were just left over Prothean husks. Whoopie..? The second game really should have been about finding the origin of the reapers and perhaps ended with the finding of the crucible blueprints.

In other news it looks like they're doing a viral thing again, though this time they have two accounts (Cerberus & the Talons) tweeting simultaneously. Wow, Cerberus's cryptologists are seriously overpaid, they're using a basic Caesar cipher.

Those creatures that were in the last comic look really good in this one.

They are at 0:47

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The Adjutant. IIRC it was originally intended to be a part of the reaper forces in the main game, but it had some kind of teleport attack that gave the game engine fits, so it was cut and the concept was recycled for the comic. Nice that they got it in in the end.

Yeah, I had a couple tries at the "just survive" strategy. The problem is that those damn Banshees would always trap me in a corner. My strategy became to kill them as quickly as possible and then when everyone else overran my position, I started running around and shooting like a madman. I finally managed to survive. Of course I was on the opposite end of the map from where I needed to be. I was sure I was going to die just trying to get to the missiles but somehow I made it.

Overall I wasn't a fan of the final mission on Earth. It seemed hard for the sake of being hard.

So ok... Just took a loot at the alternate appearance pack screenshots. I was thrilled to see the design of the new Shep armor, since it's what the N7 Demolisher (my favorite multiplayer class) wears, and I always wished my SP engineer could wear it... and then I saw the Cerberus logos all over it. Really, Bioware? REALLY? How does that make any sense in the context of ME3? That's like the equivalent of "Oh hey, Captain America, here's a new suit to give you an edge in fighting the Nazis. Oh, and it has swastikas on it. Hope you don't mind."

Omega - It's better than Leviathan, but it's not without its problems. AD is in full effect, there's no decision wheel AT ALL. You get a few occasional interrupts but that's about it. Took me about 2 1/2 hours to complete, I'm not sure it's worth 1200 MSP.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the cerberus livery either. It's be nice if the armour sets had alternate skins. Even a straight texture swap rather than the full set of color/pattern options would be fine. An N7, or Spectre version of the Ajax would have been very nice indeed. I mean come on now Bioware it's been three games now, can we please have some spectre armour?

Just finished it. According to my saves it took me 4 and a half hours in two sittings (started it last night) so the claim that it's the longest DLC to date seems accurate. Granted I was taking my time, looking around the maps for all pick-ups (yet somehow missed the spare part for that batarian engineer), read all the new codex entries and took time speaking with Aria after the missions so I'm sure one could easily cut an hour off of that.

Overall I'd say it was very good, but falls short of being the best DLC. As with the main game, there are a lot of wasted opportunities. The ending I thought was a little sudden and somewhat shallow. I won't get into spoilers but I was very disappointed with the way they handled the reason why Nyreen couldn't come back to the Normandy with you. Also, not getting Omega as a hub world after completing the DLC feels like a *huge* wasted opportunity. Even if it was nothing more than a few extra scan quests and an upgrade shop. On the postive side, they're certainly continuing Leviathan's trend of borrowing certain things from Multiplayer, which adds a nice amount of variety to the combat.

One thing that surprised me though was that they appear to have made a new elcor asset. It may just be a re-texture, but I swear the facial animations were different.

Granted I was taking my time, looking around the maps for all pick-ups (yet somehow missed the spare part for that batarian engineer), read all the new codex entries and took time speaking with Aria after the missions so I'm sure one could easily cut an hour off of that.

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Oh, good, I'm not the only one who missed that the first time through.

Granted I was taking my time, looking around the maps for all pick-ups (yet somehow missed the spare part for that batarian engineer), read all the new codex entries and took time speaking with Aria after the missions so I'm sure one could easily cut an hour off of that.

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Oh, good, I'm not the only one who missed that the first time through.

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I missed it too. Along with the 3rd computer terminal for the hacker apparently.

Granted I was taking my time, looking around the maps for all pick-ups (yet somehow missed the spare part for that batarian engineer), read all the new codex entries and took time speaking with Aria after the missions so I'm sure one could easily cut an hour off of that.

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Oh, good, I'm not the only one who missed that the first time through.

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I missed it too. Along with the 3rd computer terminal for the hacker apparently.

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Did anyone else keep finding Turians to revive? I never did find out what the point of that was. I half expected it to be for some sidequest or achievement, but I didn't see anything pop up.

It's becoming harder and harder for me to take this company seriously anymore.

Help me, Dragon Age III. You're my only hope.

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The quality started to nosedive the instant EA took over. The source of the problem is obvious. Since the problem isn't going anywhere, I'd expect the nosedive to continue.

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I don't think the problem is EA - I think the problem is that Bioware hamstrung themselves with a lot of the design and narrative decisions they made in this game and we're just seeing how badly they screwed themselves over with the DLC, since they're running up against those problems and having to work around or avoid dealing with them.